Night Goes Cold
by Military Mechanic
Summary: Most children grow up listening to fairytales and hearing about Romeos. Being told to follow their dreams, and to never give up. But what happens to the ones that don't hear? When the night goes cold for them, what do they have left?


A/N: This is so far from what I had planned out when I started writing this, but I still think that it turned out well. After all, it's a Todd story and who can get enough of Todd?

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As children, we are read stories of heroes and maidens in distress. Tales of Romeos and Juliets, and of love that is always accepted at the end. Fantasies and myths - and are they real, mommy, can we really turn out like that?

And the mothers smile down at their child and assure them that, yes, everyone gets a happy ending. Everything always turns out right. And then they pull the covers up to the chin of their son or their daughter, they brush bangs out of eyes and give a kiss goodnight - and when they close they door, it is on a happy child.

That is how most children grow up. With fairytales giving them wings and fueling their dreams. With parents who are loving and proud.

Most, but not all.

Todd Tolensky, for example, was never told these stories at night. Was never given the chance to read them himself, either. He was always too busy. Too focused on reality to let his mind wander, especially into places that weren't real.

Like mothers who cared, and dreams that came true.

Instead, Todd was expected to take care of his mother. Every night, from the time he was five years old, he was in charge of searching for her in the pathetic excuse of a house that the two lived in. Sometimes, he would find her on the couch, half-obscured by a blanket. More often, he found her curled up on the floor, with an empty bottle in one hand and the other curled around a bloody arm.

So he would pick her up and haul her into the bathroom. Wash down her arms, her face, and her neck. Todd moved her to the bed, after that, and brushed her long blonde hair. Changed her into a night gown, and then it was off to try and find something for his dinner.

Occasionally, he would have the money to order pizza. Often, he ended up rooting through the nearby dumpsters, stealing the left-overs of happy families and trying to ignore the fact that it was colder inside of his house then out.

Days passed by, and then they morphed into weeks and months and years. The routine was always the same. Nights never changed - even when he was found by Mystique, who didn't know of his home life and, damn it to Hell, he was going to keep it that way.

The rest of his time did, though.

It changed for the better, because he suddenly found people that cared for him, that wanted him around and didn't claim he was a bastard child or the reason for their sufferings. Didn't have to drink themselves into a stupor just to they could be around him, and if they did they kept it hidden, unlike the woman that he called mother.

Lance and Pietro and Freddy, they became his brothers. Rouge, his sister. They made living bearable, and gave him something to wake up for each day. They gave him someone that would miss him if he didn't wake up the next day - and isn't that how a fairytale went? Didn't they mean happy endings?

Todd thought they did, even if he had never read any himself.

But then, they were also just stories and that was a fact made concrete when his sister abandoned him. Just when he started to trust Rouge and love her - and he told her such, that she was his sister and, if it came down to it then he would gladly die for her. Then he woke up one day, and she was on the other side and she acted like she didn't care about anything they had been through; like she didn't remember the times they patched each other up after a fight; like she had never been a part of the Money Counting nights, when Lance helped them figure out how much they had to spend on food and clothes and bills; like she hadn't been there when Todd came to the boarding house, eyes rimmed with red, and a hand shaped bruise forming on his cheek.

The first few times they passed each other in the halls at school, she completely ignored him. Acted like he didn't exist, and did he even exist to her anymore? Did any of the Brotherhood boys? Because she still existed to them, and it had hurt Freddy and Lance and Pietro and himself so badly when she left.

Then, one day, she stopped him. And it was so odd, because she had the strangest look on her face. Like she was worried. But about what?

"Are yah okay, Todd?" she asked him - and Todd was just so beyond stunned, because why was she asking him?

Rouge would have no way to know that his mother had gotten worse those past few days, and that even his unchanging night routine had been switched up. That now, every night, he was holding his mothers hair up as she retched into the toilet and that sometimes she vomited up blood and only blood and, dear God, when was the last time he had slept?

He couldn't remember, and then he didn't remember what Rouge had been asking him either. So Todd just pursed his lips and muttered that she was fine, and why did she care? She wasn't a member of the family any more.

She was a traitor.

Todd tried to ignore the look of her that flashed across her face at the name. It was true, after all, and that was all that she was. Someone that had betrayed the Brotherhood - and Rouge didn't realize just how deep that betrayal ran, not when it came to Todd who didn't have much to lose anyway.

Rouge didn't speak to Todd during school, after that. Just watched from afar as the shadows beneath his eyes grew larger, the fear there deeper, and everything that had once made him young just seemed to fade away into nothing. As his hair lost its luster, and he just seemed to _fade_.

And Todd ignored her, because she was a traitor and it still hurt to think about that. And he had other things to worry about, anyways. Things like the fact that his mother was getting sicker and her addiction worse - and what had she called him, just the night before? Hadn't she called him a fuckin' bastard child? A piece of shit? Something that should just be killed and left for the birds?

Yes. Yes, she had, and that was what he was thinking about when he was sitting in class that day. Rouge, he knew, was in the chair behind him. Lance, three down on his left. Pietro first chair on the right.

And the announcer was crackling and Raven, no Mystique, no Raven was speaking. But her words didn't make sense. Todd's mother had been drunk when he lft that morning, but she had been alive and well and she couldn't be dead. Just couldn't be. Not now, when things were finally smoothing out.

But that's what Raven was saying.

And everyone was staring at him then, with wide eyes and whispers already forming on their tongues. Most didn't know that he even had a mother; but Rouge did and she reached foreward, tried to rest gloved fingertips on Todd's shoulder, but he was already up and running because it had to be a lie, it had to be!

Two hours later and Todd found himself sitting in a cold, dark mourge and identifying the body of Martha Tolensky. She had killed herself that morning, shortly after her son left for the Boarding House. But hadn't she been dead for longer? Hadn't she _always_ been dead?

Because she certainly wasn't a mother. Not if one listened to a fairytale.

Then again, Todd had never believed in Romeos and heroes. Hadn't the chance too, before. Still didn't -because now he had a funeral to finance and plan, and he was so surprised because Mystique was offering to fund the entire thing, was offering to help him sell his three room apartment and instead move into the Boarding House.

The young boy let her, because he didn't have any other way to get it all done. When it was, and she was buried in the ground and he had an entire bag transferred from one grungy house to the next and people were still staring at him because, now, he couldn't quit scratching at the scars on his wrist, even though they were old and covered.

He was a wreck, and Rouge was staring at him all the time, and then she came up to him one day but he didn't let her speak. Just turned and ran, because this wasn't a fairytale. They weren't real.

The only thing that was were things nightmares were made of.

As children, we are read stories of heroes and maidens in distress. Tales of Romeos and Juliets, and of love that is always accepted at the end. Fantasies and myths - and are they real, mommy, can we really turn out like that?

But the mother just shakes her head, because her child isn't normal and anyone who looks at him can tell. So she answers honestly and tells them that, no, real life doesn't have a happy ending and he should just quit dreaming now. Then she snatches up another bottle and lets the amber liqued burn her throat, calls them a bastard child and that they shouldn't forget that fact- and when she closes the door, it is on a child that knows the truth and knows that he must grow up, because someone needs to help that staggering woman to her own bed before he can really climb into his.

That is how Todd grew up. With fairytales breaking wings and alcohol ruining dreams. With a mother that would rather he be dead than taking up her time; yet he loves her none the less and tries, really and truly, to make up for being born.


End file.
